Forced Marriages

Articles

(The Below article was published in: The Guardian, January 9, 2008)
Forcing the issue
What we should learn from forced marriages and ’honour’ killings is that we cannot allow cultural relativism to compromise women’s human rights
by Lily Gupta (...)

Friday, 07 November 2008
To the Kurdish Parliament and the Kurdistan Regional Government
We demand the repeal of polygamous marriages and all other discriminatory laws against women in Kurdistan.
On October 27, 2008, legislation allowing (...)

Moroccan activists have stepped up pressure to scrap laws that allow rapists to marry their victims - after a 16-year-old girl killed herself.
Amina Filali swallowed rat poison after being severely beaten during a forced marriage to her rapist.

In a resolution adopted today, PACE invited the member states to adapt their national legislation in order to prohibit and penalise forced marriages, female genital mutilation and any other gender-based violations of human rights, encouraging them to prosecute abductions, illegal confinements and forced returns of women or girls to their countries of origin. According to the parliamentarians, cultural or religious relativism cannot be invoked to justify these acts.